Breathe Into Me
by ForeverandNevermore
Summary: Hardenshipping. Spoilers for Emerald Manga arc. Archie is dying, and that gives him reflection time. Time to realize what he's done. To realize that he's killed the man who loved him. T for violence


* * *

So I'm here. Dying. I can feel my body rotting. Innards turning to dust. With one half in sea and one half in shore, I'm dying. I can't hear what they're saying about me. But I pick up what they're saying to me in small pieces.  
"If you continue this way without changing your attitude, you'll be-"  
I cut him off there.  
"Very lonely."  
Emerald seems shocked. I an only laugh.  
"Loneliness...no matter. After all...This is what I want. Leaving my subordinates behind, those who admired me...betraying my team..."  
I pause. Should I? Can I say more, without breaking out of my protective shell?  
"The only one...whom I call 'friend'...the man whom I shared all my hardships with has also been abandoned...I'm just that kind of guy..."  
They may have seen my memories.  
But only I can see the truth.

I don't know why she picked us up. She said it was about the 'essence of evil' in our bodies. Whatever that meant. All I knew was that we were both starting to decay from the inside out.  
She told us that she had a suit of armor that made us immortal.  
That was the problem. A suit. Only one. And a sword that could destroy anything as well as act as a shield. We wanted to live, live for repentance.  
She wanted us to battle for it.

It was in his eyes, and in mine too, I suppose. But we had already lost our humanity. We were nothing but drones now, drones of the legendary Pokemon we sought to control.  
And so it begun.

_

* * *

  
And this is how it feels when I ignore the words you spoke to me  
And this is where I lose myself when I keep running away from you  
And this is who I am when, when I don't know myself anymore  
And this is what I choose when it's all left up to me  
_

The expression in his eyes told me to make the first move. Screamed it, almost. I charged.  
He dodged me, a quick movement on his feet. He always had been so, so graceful...  
I turned, about to throw a punch. He seemed to smirk, using the strength he had left from the possession to grab my incoming fist, blood drawing from where his sharp, feminine nails cut into my skin. He was quick about landing a kick, effectively at my center of gravity; the hips.  
I fell over, flexing my bleeding hand. He, swift as a Rapidash, danced upon our battlefield, dodging everything I threw at him, whether I was tapping into Kyogre's energy or not. In his twirls of missing my hardly-aimed fists, I felt the nails rake upon my flesh, tearing at skin and cloth. His fingers cracked as he carved into my bare skin; creating elegant patterns of swirls and slashes. Like Art. Graceful tattoos.  
It wasn't long before I couldn't tell the dancer from his dance.  
Syd, the damned Rocket Woman, laughed. And with her laughter came anger. Anger what welled inside of me like a pool of magma, pardon the simile, fellow Aquas, for it is the truth, and churned in my stomach like a typhoon.  
Through the burning marks in my flesh and the anger that scorched my soul, I didn't aim the next punch.

_  
And this is how it looks when I am standing on the edge  
And this is how I break apart when I finally hit the ground  
And this is how it hurts when I pretend I don't feel any pain  
And this is how I disappear when I throw myself away_

My hand hit a wet, pulsating thing. Its heat throbbed and burned against my cold hand, and I felt sharp shards around it slash at my already torn skin. It took me seconds of silence to realize what exactly I had hit.  
In my fist, I held my rival's heart.  
He fell to the ground, blood gushing from his mouth, spreading on the floor of the airship in tendrils identical to his hair. It splattered my face, adorned my clothing, and enclosed itself around my hand. It felt wonderful. It felt horrible.  
It was the look in his eyes that caused me to fall to my knees around the body that was soon becoming a corpse. Like he had _wanted_ me to kill him. _Wanted_ to die.  
A faint whisper, gurgled from the vital fluid that made its way up his esophagus, came to my ears. "Keep it. It was always yours, anyway..."  
The corners of his bloody lips turned into a sad, sad smile as the life left his crying eyes.  
_No_  
Had I not remembered the bond we shared as children? Had I not felt the compassion in his final words? He'd said words I could never imagine him saying; to keep the heart that he had given to me. He had been...?  
As Syd threw back her head in laughter, I kissed the still-warm corpse of my worst enemy, of my best friend. His body turned to dust beneath my embrace.

_Breathe your life into me  
I can feel you  
I'm falling, falling faster  
Breathe your life into me  
I still need you  
I'm falling, falling  
Breathe into me

* * *

_

But now we are here. You're gone, gone. I am all that's left of what once was the greatest fight in history. And even I am dying.  
I crawl to the suit of armor Syd gave me for defeating you, my source of regret. My fingers brush it as I mutter. "Galac-"  
My final words are what they asked me. But I think, as the power that once possessed me makes me crumble. I think, as I see the 'Ashes to Ashes' prophecy come true.  
_I'm sorry.

* * *

_


End file.
